Is there a reason for being? Why are we so often fearful? How can we know our Destiny? What is the cure for racism and hate? Is there such a thing as a "Happy Place" to be found in our lives? What is Life and am I giving it my best? When it is said that "I will give you beauty for your ashes," what does that mean exactly? And if I were a dog, what kind of dog would I be? These are questions that we all have and wonder about, yes? Ok, perhaps not that last one reflected here. But we humans do wonder, ponder and muse. It is in us to do so. And contained within these pages are some thoughts and ideas on these questions and more, along with perhaps even some answers to things that we think upon. Come walk with me a bit down this Road of Thought and let us see what lies along the way of Contemplation and Discovery. I will see you inside, my good friend!

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

In this comprehensive volume of the collected writings of James Monroe Whitfield (1822-71), Robert S. Levine and Ivy G. Wilson restore this African American poet, abolitionist, and intellectual to his rightful place in the arts and politics of the nineteenth-century United States. Whitfield's works, including poems from his celebrated America and Other Poems (1853), were printed in influential journals and newspapers, such as Frederick Douglass's The North Star. A champion of the black emigration movement during the 1850s, Whitfield was embraced by African Americans as a black nationalist bard when he moved from his longtime home in Buffalo, New York, to California in the early 1860s. However, by the beginning of the twentieth century, his reputation had faded. For this volume, Levine and Wilson gathered and annotated all of Whitfield's extant writings, both poetry and prose, and many pieces are reprinted here for the first time since their original publication. In their thorough introduction, the editors situate Whitfield in relation to key debates on black nationalism in African American culture, underscoring the importance of poetry and periodical culture to black writing during the period.

"Winona, a Dakota Legend; and Other Poems" is a book of poems, sonnets, and poetic translation by Eli Lundy Huggins, an American soldier and poet who received the Medal of Honor for his activity in the Indian Wars. The longest poem in the book that gave the edition its name is "Winona," which is a poem in three parts.